Your commercial news round-up: Citroën, smartphone safeguards, inflation, fast food

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The transport secretary has expressed concerns over a recent recall of Citroën cars and the UK safeguarding minister has called for better child protection technology on smartphones. Meanwhile, UK inflation grew to 3.8% and consumer research has found that people are spending less on fast food this summer. Catch up on the latest headlines in this week’s commercial news round-up.

• Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has expressed “serious concerns” about how Citroën handled a recent safety recall, which left thousands of people in the UK unable to drive their cars. The car company’s owner Stellantis issued a “stop drive” order in June for C3 and DS3 models manufactured in a certain date range due to a potentially faulty airbag. The alert impacted 120,000 cars. Alexander has stated that the company’s recall process needs “immediate” improvement due to reports of inadequate support with alternative transport arrangements. Consumer group Which? described the recall as “chaotic” and said it received reports from “many distressed drivers”. As of Tuesday 19 August, more than 72,000 vehicles have had airbags replaced. Stellantis insisted that Citroën is “fully engaged” in maximising the number of cars being fixed each day, and is aiming to repair the majority of vehicles by the end of September.
   
• Meanwhile, UK Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips has stated that smartphone makers need to embed more child protection technology, as she defended the UK’s new requirements for online age verification. Ofcom has recently begun enforcing provisions of the 2023 Online Safety Act, requiring platforms that host potentially harmful content to implement robust age assurance measures. Phillips told the Financial Times: “I want to see tech companies… putting as much resource into this as they do into their addictive algorithms.” Currently, Apple devices and Google’s Android software both allow parents to control which apps their children can install and limit usage. Apple plans to offer new capabilities that allow parents to share their child’s age range with third party apps without sharing their exact date of birth.
   
• UK inflation grew from 3.6% in June to 3.8% in July, which was a higher rate than expected. The increase was largely driven by higher food prices and transport costs. The Bank of England has predicted that inflation will reach a peak of 4% in September, before falling back to the 2% target. Rising air fairs were a key driver of inflation in June, with a 30.2% uplift attributed to higher school holiday prices. Meanwhile, food prices also rose to 4.9%, mainly driven by increased prices for products such as beef, orange juice and coffee. In the past five years to July, food and non-alcoholic drink prices have risen by 37%.
   
• People are spending less on fast food this summer, according to consumer research by Worldpanel. Findings revealed that casual and fast-food restaurants have seen a 6% drop in customers over the three months to mid-July, compared to last year. Instead, people were spending more money in the supermarket. Head of personal finance at financial services company Hargreaves Lansdown, Sarah Coles, explained that people are opting for smaller and cheaper ways to treat themselves. She noted that, when people look to cut costs, "eating out is one of the first things to go". However, she added that there are “more cost-effective ways to get the same reward”, such as takeaway coffees – a trend reflected in a 3% rise in coffee shop sales compared to the previous year. Findings also showed that people were more willing to treat themselves to branded grocery items, with sales growing by 6.1% in August. Meanwhile, sales of own-label alternatives were up by 4.1%, which is the largest gap in favour of brands since March 2024.

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